The UK Gambling Commission has called for the gambling industry’s continued cooperation to strengthen the Gambling Survey for Great Britain.
Ben Haden, the UKGC’s Director of Research and Statistics, sent out the request in a blog post following the publication of the first quarter of participation figures for year two of the GSGB last week.
The latest GSGB figures, covering a nationally representative sample of 5,191 adults aged 18 and over who were interviewed between January 2024 and April 2024, stated that overall gambling participation was 48% in the past four weeks.
Delving deeper into this overall participation figure, the online gambling rate was 38%, falling to 16% when removing lottery draws, while the in-person gambling rate was 29%, dropping to 18% when excluding lottery draws.
GSGB feedback
While the development of the GSGB is still in its early stages, the UKGC’s Research and Statistics Director thanked gambling sector stakeholders for voicing their opinions on the survey.
Haden said: “We’re a couple of months on from the release of our first annual report for GSGB and one of the great things that I and the team at the commission have seen since then is the number of people in the research community, the gambling sector and even more widely, starting to explore and get to grips with what the wealth of data we now have can tell us.
“For the first time, we can delve down to the national and regional levels in terms of participation. And we have data detailing the positive impacts of gambling people experience as part of our official statistics – not just a picture of the risks and consequences.”
The importance of feedback was also highlighted by Haden, as it can help to improve the GSGB constructively.
“When I hosted the webinar for the launch of the annual report, I asked attendees to come forward and engage with their perspectives on GSGB – where they have their own data that is consistent or where it isn’t, so we can understand why not.
“I’m grateful to those in the gambling sector and beyond who have reached out to us constructively. We will look to compile this and report back in future, in the same transparent way we’ve conducted the development of the GSGB.
“We want your feedback – it’s a normal part of the process of continually developing official statistics – and alongside the recommendations of Professor Sturgis – they will help us make the GSGB even stronger going forwards. Once again – do share your data with us soon, so it can be a part of this package of work.”
Concerns and recommendations
Back in July, the Betting and Gaming Council voiced its opinion on the GSGB, stating that its members were concerned as they believe GSGB findings may be “unreliable” and overstating gambling participation and gambling-related harm.
A spokesperson for the BGC said in a statement at the time: “The methodology used in this survey is different to those previously conducted into betting and gaming.
“As a result, the Gambling Commission has been clear, GSGB should not be used to make direct comparisons with results from prior surveys, as a measure of addiction, or to gross up problem gambling prevalence to the whole population.
“Our members are concerned these findings may be unreliable because there is a significant risk GSGB overstates gambling participation and gambling related harm.
“Surveys using predominantly online self-completion consistently produce higher estimates of gambling participation and associated harms, compared to established alternative survey methods.”
The UKGC also commissioned Professor Patrick Sturgis of the London School of Economics in November last year to conduct an independent review of the push-to-web approach for GSGB.
In his review published in February 2024, Sturgis characterised the GSGB developments as “exemplary in all respects”, and that the move to push-to-web will bring several “important benefits”.
However, he also provided seven recommendations for how the UKGC can address unresolved issues following his review of the GSGB methodology.
Regarding Professor Sturgis’ recommendations, the UKGC Director noted as well that an Invitation to Tender has been published, asking suppliers to provide proposals to undertake additional work related to the first three recommendations.
These three recommendations were that the UKGC should:
- Conduct research to better understand the relationship between survey topic and the propensity of gamblers to respond to survey invitations.
- Undertake additional research to better understand the role of socially desirable responding as the driver of the difference in gambling estimates between in-person and self-completion surveys.
- Undertake a randomised experiment to evaluate the effect of the updated list of gambling activities on estimates of gambling prevalence and harm.
Haden added that the UKGC will continue to take action against those who misuse its official statistics.
“Feedback is welcome. But whilst we will continue to work hard on refining the GSGB where we need to, I am excited that we are only at the beginning of what this is the start for us in terms of how we will be able to make changes using the GSGB.
“The more research and work that is done using the regular data that the GSGB provides – at scale and high quality – the more we will see its value.”